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Jesse Johnson, 37
Corporate security lead, Harley-Davidson Motor Company
Milwaukee
J
esse Johnson studied criminal justice as an undergraduate at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee and decided to pursue the private sector. " i got my foot in
the door here at h arley-Davidson as a contractor in 2004," he said, holding roles
as a security officer, shift supervisor, and account manager with the company since then.
Johnson assumed his current role as the corporate security lead for h arley-Davidson in
2015, shortly after obtaining his M.B.A. h e is now responsible for the Corporate s ecurity
operations at h arley-Davidson's headquarters, the h arley-Davidson Museum, security
planning and staffing at special events, motorcycle rallies, and other corporate events
with international dealers, as well as providing consulting for h arley-Davidson's financial
facilities, and international manufacturing facilities.
"When it comes down to it, the most unique piece of this work is protecting the brand. Though we're not a huge
company, our brand speaks volumes globally—it's highly recognizable. s o, any negative media, any incidents that
occur that make us high profile, could alter the image of that brand. h ow we respond to, how we address, how we
minimize incidents that affect our organization ultimately keeps the brand in the spotlight in a good way," he said.
" o ur motto, our creed in this department, is protecting the legend," Johnson said.
Johnson noted on a current trend in the security industry of "doing more with less;" companies are trying to get
as much out of a budget as they can, and he foresees this continuing over the next several years. "Technology is a
big capital investment; but, technology also demonstrates a great return on investment in the end," he said.
" i know we're in a large push now to supplement personnel with technology that makes sense, and i just don't
see that going away. As the technology continues to progress, we're going to leverage it more and more, on all
facets—access control, video, video analytics," he said. —Spencer Ives
Curtis Kindred, 35
Owner, president and CEO, American Defense Systems
Bedford, Texas
C
U r T is k in D re D , owner, president and C eo of American Defense s ystems,
started the company in July of 2010, after joining the industry in 2008.
The company now secures more than 35,000 locations across the country
and has 200 employees and contractors.
American Defense s ystems is a Brinks h ome s ecurity dealer, with a 90 percent
residential and 10 percent commercial account mix.
Prior to joining the industry, k indred served a few years in the U. s . Army in the 1/75
r anger Battalion in s avannah, Ga., serving two tours of combat in Afghanistan and i raq.
k indred left s avannah and chased his passion in the golf industry where he was managing
a couple of courses in n orthern California, and then relocated to Phoenix to teach at the Wigwam resort. k indred
quickly realized that he wanted more. While working part time as a bartender, k indred came into the security industry
by being recruited to sell alarms door to door.
"The most rewarding part of my day is being able to see people grow in their roles … it's a great feeling to see
people transform their lives in this lucrative industry while adding valuable skillsets of sales professionals, technicians,
customer service, and operations," k indred said. "Also, with my military background, it's important for us, to feel like
we can be the first line of defense in case something happens in the home." American Defense s ystems tag line is,
"from the front lines to your front door," he added.
k indred plans to grow American Defense s ystems substantially over the next five years to be one of the largest
providers of home security, nationwide. "Providing a world-class experience to our customers aligned with taking
care of our employees, contractors, and partners is what we strive for daily," k indred said.—Spencer Ives
Colby Meshey, 36
Deputy director, security services division, Pentagon Force Protection Agency
Washington D.C.
C
ol BY Meshe Y began working for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency
(PFPA) in 2007. Prior to joining PFPA, he served in the Air Force for seven
years, where he worked in the security forces that protected critical assets
at F e Warren AFB in Wyoming, and was a member of the Distinguished Visitor s ecurity
Team at Andrews AFB in Maryland.
Working at the PFPA, Meshey led Pentagon s entry, an effort to modernize both
electronic and physical security across the Pentagon r eservation. e fforts included a
complete tear-down and reconstruction of regulatory compliant access control points
and security facilities.
"We are at a point now where we have modern and standardized facilities that are flexible enough to adapt to the
changing threat conditions that face our officers," Meshey explained. "Achieving this flexibility in post operations is
no small feat as we have essentially re-shaped our physical security perimeter across the r eservation in the midst
of a dense, complex, urban environment within one of the n ational Capital r egion's busiest transportation hubs."
i n his current role, Meshey manages close to 150 personnel, both contractor and government. "There are a large
number of physical and electronic security accomplishments we are particularly proud of at PFPA, including becoming
one of the first hs PD-12 compliant DoD facilities," Meshey explained. Adopting this "enterprise" approach across all
of PFPA's protected facilities throughout the n ational Capital r egion is something the team continues to work on today.
i n terms of technology on the horizon, PFPA has set itself up to make use of multimodal biometrics (fingerprint and
iris) at areas where warranted. Additionally, a key area of focus has been ensuring that alarm information (video, access
control, intrusion detection) is useable and actionable for the end-user and responder. "We've spent a considerable
amount of effort driving down alarm counts while paying attention to what the experience of alarm management
is like for our operations center," Meshey noted.—Paul Ragusa
Brandon T. Niles, 34
Director of operations, Acadian Monitoring Services
Lafayette, La.
B
r A n D on n iles, now the director of operations for Acadian Monitoring
s ervices, started at the company as legal counsel, joining the business
directly out of law school.
" i was so intrigued by what we were doing on the monitoring side that i spent
a lot of time in the central station, and i kept asking a lot of questions. s o, over
the first one to two years, i got promoted to where i was a manager and doing
legal work. Then, i just kept being really interested in everything that was going on
with it—especially on the video monitoring side—that i eventually stopped doing
most of the legal work and started focusing solely on the operational aspect of the
business," n iles said.
Acadian Monitoring is part of Acadian Total s ecurity, n iles noted. " i work with a number of different teams
from our division. i make sure that the goals and the strategies that we create during our strategic planning
session the year before … are getting met," he said. " i mine a lot of different pieces of data, to make sure that
our standards for customer service and customer satisfaction are all being met. s o, that's on the monitoring
and the security side of our business."
n iles said that he's really intrigued by the quickly evolving nature of security, highlighting the changes of
the D i Y market in the past two to three years as an example. " i love the fact that it's not a stagnant industry,"
n iles said. " i t's constantly evolving and constantly improving."
n iles is also interested in new analytics that utilize artificial intelligence. "The ability to make fast decisions
and see what's going on is just improving constantly," he said.—Spencer Ives
Michael Petrone, 36
Director of project operations, Briscoe Protective
Centereach, N.Y.
M
i C h A el Pe T rone is director of project operations at Briscoe Protec-
tive, a security company that specializes in designing custom fire alarm
and security systems for commercial, industrial and institutional clients. i n
his current role he oversees and ensures that Briscoe's $3.5-million-worth of on-going
projects are running efficiently and under budget, a task that he says "is multi-faceted
and complex, and includes a multitude of things, including researching and identifying
new technologies, implementing new processes in technology to help logistics, and
finding efficiencies within jobs."
Petrone also oversees and manages the implementation of new in-house technologies
and works closely with i T and the other internal business units. " i n my department, we also educate customers on
different systems and products engineered and maintained by Briscoe," he said. " i do like the i T side of things and the
integration to all the different building systems on the security side, and we deal with a lot on the fire side as well."
Petrone first got started in the electrical industry, where he gained experience working with a multitude of different
systems, including fire alarm, security and access control. h e then joined a family's member's security company and
"the rest is history," he said. " i like that the industry is dynamic—every day is a new challenge and new technology
to learn about."
i n terms of new technology, "The mobile and remote arming/disarming and alarm and video notifications and
confirmation, for example, are some of things that we are employing and very popular with our customer base.
e verybody wants everything at the touch of their fingers, so we are trying to provide that for them."
h e continued, "As far as communication to central station, we see the phone lines are going away, so cellular and
network communicators, as well as video verification, are growing in popularity."—Paul Ragusa
Ashley Raisanen, 31
Business manager, WH International Response Center
Rockford, Minn.
A
shle Y rA is A nen, now the business manager at W h i nternational r esponse
Center, started with the company as an overnight dispatcher in 2009,
and has "pretty much ... worked every position on the way up," she said.
i n 2013, she was promoted to a data entry specialist. s he was promoted again in
2014 to be the day shift supervisor. i n December of 2015, she assumed her role as the
business manager.
W h i nternational r esponse Center is a TMA Five Diamond monitoring center. "We
continuosly evaluate and integrate technology to stay on the leading edge, and provide
customized solutions for our customers," she said.
i n her role, r aisanen works with forecasting for the future of the business as well as managing the everyday
operations of the company. " i work with our sales team to really vet out new technology and make sure it's the right
fit for us, but i also work with the dispatchers and team leaders on a day-to-day basis," r aisanen said. "To really
understand where your business should be in the future, you have to know where you are today."
r aisanen said she likes to see how new technologies fit in with monitoring services. " i love the new technology, i
like to understand how it works. i 'm a very technical person when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the business," she
said. " i just like that it's changing every day, it keeps you on your toes."
s pecifically, she highlighted video as a prominent technology right now. " i think that it's really going to enhance
the dispatching aspect. i believe that most new systems will have some type of video integration to verify alarms."
—Spencer Ives
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